When to transplant / repotting in winter

Use this forum to get advice on growing succulents and keeping them healthy
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tasuccs
Posts: 29
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2020 7:47 am
Location: Tel Aviv (Zone Csa) 31 N

When to transplant / repotting in winter

Post by tasuccs »

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to the world of growing plants and succulents - spring's quarantines seemingly awoke a latent obsession that quickly spiraled into a frenzy of buying and propagating plants in containers that, to the bewilderment of my poor girlfriend, quickly filled every well-lit surface of our balcony and house (family photo at the bottom, missing some larger succulents, props and houseplants).

Not wanting my newly acquired collection to die on me, I've been reading voraciously to get ahead of the learning curve. While timing pruning and watering seems pretty clear, or at least, I know what to look for within my trial and error, I've struggled to find consistent advice about when the right time is to pot up succulents (assuming they're getting too big for their homes). There seem to be a few schools of thought:
1) A plant that is vigorously growing is more likely to bounce back quickly, repot in spring when plants are ramping up but water stress is minimal,
2) Better to repot a dormant plant that has low water needs than stress a plant in the middle of bud formation,
3) It doesn't really matter, repot whenever you feel that it's necessary, just be careful with watering-in.
I'd love to hear people's approaches and what has worked for them with respect to the climate where they live (I live in a hot Mediterranean climate, zone Csa/10b)

I bought quite a few succulents in the past couple of months, and figured I'd better wait until spring to repot, but recently checked and some of them are clearly becoming root bound - so any specific advice on those would be greatly appreciated:
- actively growing: euphorbia mammillaris, curio repens
- seemingly asleep: notocactus (herteri?), Stapelia (?)

Thanks in advance, looking forward to learning from everyone's experience and reporting back!

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Mrs.Green
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Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2020 5:59 pm

Re: When to transplant / repotting in winter

Post by Mrs.Green »

Hi tasuccs :) Nice collection! I live in a very different climate from yours, so my thoughts on the subject wouldn’t be very interesting. But..the beer/sodacans, do they have drainage holes in the bottom? I guess they are made of aluminium? Not sure if that’s good for the plants? Cooking in aluminium casserolles isn’t good for your health but I don’t know if this applies to using aluminiumcans as pots? I am sure there are people here that can answer this though :)
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tasuccs
Posts: 29
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2020 7:47 am
Location: Tel Aviv (Zone Csa) 31 N

Re: When to transplant / repotting in winter

Post by tasuccs »

Hi Mrs Green! Yep, there's no doubt that beer cans are far from ideal homes for succulents. I do have the bottom 2/3 filled with coarse volcanic tuff and holes for drainage at the bottom. It was something I decided to try out when I had some props on hand I didn't mind losing, and no pots to plant them. So consider it a colorful experiment! I'm not so concerned about leaching, after all we do drink acidic drinks stored in these cans, so much as the can retaining moisture and conducting heat. But we'll see, so far so good!

And of course, even if your climate is different, any input is welcome!
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